To Authors: Five Hundred Blogs Later

My post today is dedicated to other authors out in Etherland who are struggling to accomplish marketing tasks that seem insurmountable.
You have to organize your tasks. I smile as I write this, because I have said this tens of thousands of times to my composition students, many of whom would have preferred to dash something off and turn it in, expecting that I would see the genius of the idea and award it an A. Those who flailed around with the job, rather than plan, wrote poorly with no plan of attack. Now I took my own advice. During my marathon review of book blogs, I worked from notes I'd made about my book, and I looked at them often as I accessed and reviewed the blogs. Sometimes the blogs called my attention to some aspect of the book I hadn't seen myself.
Because many of the review bloggers are so specific in the kinds of books they're interested in,  the notes centered on the question, What kind of a book have I written? The answers came from my having written two novels and having listened carefully  to what folks have said in conversations about both novels. I was able to analyze the new novel from a broader perspective, realizing that many of the characteristics of differing types of books can overlap in a novel, thus giving the author more blogs to match up with and contact. Here is an example of how the process worked, in considering the genre of the book.

• Usually I classify my novel as a mystery. Is it more than that? In the literary world, the definitions of "mystery" and "suspense" sometimes overlap. I could put my novel forward as a mystery with excruciating elements of suspense. That opens two categories in bloggers' pages.
• Could I find bloggers who like to read "serious" mysteries? This is a sub-category into which my book fits neatly. There is no silly woman tripping around on high heels while her cat solves the mystery and she worries about her hair and makeup and the new man. Connie Holt is involved in saving a horse's life, serious stuff all right, and there is a strong presumption that maybe people will be injured or killed as well.
• What other designation could the book have? It is for adults, but young adults of late teen-age can read and understand it. In fact, there is a heroic young girl in the book who is present at and participating in the climax. I could offer my book as YA. Now we have a serious mystery with excruciating suspense for adults and young adults. What else?
• Could it be considered as a romance? Yes. There are several romances in the plot. An acute reader, as a matter of fact, can compare and contrast those relationships. So yes, to romance. But serious, not silly romance.
• Another question is does the novel "say" anything? That is, does it pose questions which are universal in scope, and appeal to all human beings everywhere? Well, yes. To all those who hate what is done to horses in racing all over the world. For people who want a novel to make a point, here is their meat. Many critics think that mysteries shouldn't have a meaning behind it, a theme. It isn't appropriate; only mainstream literature  says something important. But that is a sour, narrow viewpoint from poor thinkers. So yes, my novel can be placed foursquare into stories that say something important. Another viewpoint to look for in the blogs.
• Finally, can the reader learn anything from reading He Trots the Air? That is, apart from my preceding point? Yes. The reader can find out about how a painting is proved authentic; what some types of Virginia architecture look like; how a horse is trained. Together with details of Virginia life and manners. This will appeal to many bloggers who like to learn as they read.

You will have to explain to the bloggers why your book has many of the characteristics of literature they like. Perhaps it is about a crime, but there is so much more there. Even though this is a tough marketing project, you can do it by being organized, coming up with a way to work through the many book blogs on the Internet. Good luck!

Keats and The Pleasure of Teaching in Libraries

John Keats

For quite a few years, I've been teaching at one library or another. One of the best things modern libraries do is offer rewarding classes of many different kinds for its patrons. There you can find people learning about certain medical issues; using a computer; the writing problems that face novelists; and the work of published authors. The last two categories include me, although last year I taught a class on the Shakers to a receptive audience. (Needless to say, everything I teach I have a lot of experience with, even the Shakers, a personal obsession, which has led to my visiting as many of their former settlements as I can find and researching their theology.) For a former college professor and ongoing novelist, conducting these classes has been a pleasure.

Lately I've been teaching at Brentwood City Library, about nine miles from my home. Recently, I started five new classes at one of the most attractive and carefully-planned libraries I've ever seen. In September, I taught three introductory classes on "How is Poetry Written?" I've always loved analyzing poetry, ripping it apart, so to speak, and putting it back together again, finding its ideas and meaning. Just think. I had the opportunity to talk about figures of speech, rhythm and meter, imagery: all that good stuff I went to graduate school for years to learn. And lastly, I could revisit some of the my favorite poems by British and American authors like Browning, Tennyson, Keats, Frost. Now two October classes are starting, "The Formal Essay: How Do You Write One?" and "Using the Most Effective Point of View in Fiction." I chose the first because of years and years as a college writing teacher. I had many students who told me they never had any formal instruction on how to write an essay. "What the heck is a thesis statement?" they used to complain. When I was a new college teacher, I used to think that maybe the students were making this up. But years of experience told me they weren't. What better class could I teach at the library than an introduction to this genre?

My description of the essay class goes like this: "Writing a formal expository essay clearly and coherently is often a required skill, both in the academic and professional worlds. The class will discuss the following topics. What is an essay? What are the most common writing patterns used by essayists? How is an essay developed? What is the role of Internet research?" I'll have the joy of reading and selecting essays by modern writers which both fulfill the aims of the essay and which DON'T!

The second class is "Using the Most Effective Point of View in Fiction." Here my experience springs from writing two novels and coping with this thorny problem. I had always taught point of view in my writing and literature courses, and understood intellectually what this entails, but when it came to choosing one for my first novel, I had written 100 pages before I thought, "This just isn't working, I'll have to start over." With the second novel, point of view wasn't a problem. Here's a little of what we'll talk about: role of the narrator in the novel, major types of points of view and their characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of each, what is stream of consciousness. We'll get to read in this course too, looking at various excerpts from literature with differing points of view.

Come and join our classes if you can. The essay course is Wednesday, October 5, 2011, and the point of view class is Wednesday, October 12, 2011. They start at 6:00 PM and end at 8:00 PM. And if you come, be prepared to have fun!